He also produced Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and Songs From A Room and Songs of Love and Hate for Leonard Cohen. By 1965 he was in New York as a fledgling producer for Columbia Records. The producer had a very specific perspective on his job.
Advertisement
Cohen recalled how Johnston “created an atmosphere in the studio that really invited you to do your best, stretch out, do another take, an atmosphere that was free from judgement, free from criticism, full of invitation, full of affirmation”.
Johnston also wrote songs for Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and his Comets, but it was his work with Dylan – who relied on Johnston to record his legendary transition from acoustic to electric guitar in the mid-1960s – for which he is likely to be best remembered.
Among Johnston’s long list of credits are his production work for Bob Dylan in the mid ’60s and early ’70s on albums including Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait and New Morning.
Johnston was born on May 14, 1932, in Hillsboro, Texas, and songwriting was in his genes: His grandmother was a songwriter, as was his mother, Diane Johnston.
“All I know is that I was out recording one day, and Tom had always been there – I had no reason to think he wasn’t going to be there – and I looked up one day and Bob was there”, Dylan told Rolling Stone in 1969 about how he and Johnston were first paired.
The producer passed away on Friday within a Nashville medical institution, said Charlie McCoy, an experienced workplace player whom often collaborated with him.
But one achievement in country music stands out above all others. The label pushed back again, but Johnston still went out to San Quentin with Cash. “There suddenly was a need for more studios and more musicians”.
“I picked up the phone and called Folsom … got through to the warden, told him: “Warden, my name’s Bob Johnston“. Both are lavish in their praise of what Johnston’s help meant to their subsequent careers.
Advertisement
Johnston continued producing artists of note throughout the 1970s, including Loudon Wainwright III, Tracy Nelson, Michael Martin Murphey, Joe Ely and Hoyt Axton. Though he remained intermittently active in later decades, he had a relatively low profile in recent years. “Tells me he’s got a group in England who he wants me to record”. There is little doubt that Johnston cared deeply about the music he worked on; he was outspoken and passionate about the records he made and was justly proud of an unbelievable legacy.
